He was one of my favorite writers, and his successful career included 17 number 1 bestselling books, which sold over 100 million copies. There was also a spin off video game series, and several hit movies based off of his books.
Despite the fact that his personal views could sometimes leak into the story lines for his books (he was a staunch Republican and a conservative Catholic, I've talked about his personal philosophies here and here), it never quite seemed to get in the way of the storytelling. I loved the way he could successful balance placing in the books intricate details about military ships and aircraft and vehicles, while still building enough suspense in the story to keep you reading for hours (and you can get lost for hours in a single book, his books tended to be around 1,000 pages each).
